Introduction

Welcome to VolNinja. This guide explains how to use the app — from getting it running to placing trades, automating them, and reviewing how they did.

What VolNinja is

VolNinja is an automation cockpit for 0DTE and short-dated options trading on Interactive Brokers. Instead of watching the screen and clicking through orders all day, you describe the trades you want as reusable templates, let rules manage and close them for you, and — when you're ready — hand whole playbooks to a strategy that watches the market and acts on its own.

Three things set it apart:

• Your broker. It trades through your own Interactive Brokers account, with live market data and real order execution.
• Your rules. Entries, exits, profit targets, and risk limits are all yours to define — per position or across your whole book.
• Your machine. The trading engine — your data and your broker connection — runs on your own computer and never leaves it. The app you look at is served from the cloud and connects back over a private link, so you get a polished interface you can open from any browser without your trades ever leaving home. How that works is covered in How VolNinja works.

Who it's for

VolNinja is built for active options traders who already trade — or want to trade — index options like SPX on Interactive Brokers, and who would rather encode their approach once than execute it by hand every session. If you think in terms of setups, profit targets, and risk limits, this is for you.

This guide documents the product — what each screen does and how to get work done. It is not a course in options theory: it assumes you already know what a strike, a Greek, or a 0DTE strangle is.

How this guide is organized

The sidebar groups articles by what you're trying to do:

• Getting Started — installing VolNinja, connecting Interactive Brokers, and a tour of your first run.
• Common Workflows — task-first walkthroughs that cross several screens: placing a trade, building a template, automating exits, running a strategy, checking risk, reviewing results, and paper vs live.
• Positions — the Dashboard where you watch and act on what you hold, starting with Positions overview.
• Market View — the live options chain and intraday chart.
• Automation Basics — Rules & conditions, the shared foundation behind every rule in the app.
• Templates and Strategies — the reusable building blocks of automation, from a single template to a full strategy.
• Risk Lab — judge a trade before you commit, then review your results after.
• Remote Access & Account — account and billing and reaching your app from anywhere.
• Settings and Troubleshooting — what you can configure, and fixes for common issues.

Where to start

If VolNinja isn't running yet, begin with How VolNinja works to understand the pieces, then Installing & starting VolNinja and Connecting IBKR. Already up and connected? Jump to Your first run for a guided tour, or straight to Placing a trade.